


Only minutes young

by dwellingondreams



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Abuse, Arranged Marriage, Bad Parenting, Canonical Character Death, Casterly Rock, Cats, Cersei Lannister's A+ Parenting, Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Gen, House Lannister, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Joffrey Baratheon is His Own Warning, One Shot, POV Male Character, POV Tommen Baratheon, Present Tense, Road Trips, Robert Baratheon's A+ Parenting, The Red Keep (ASoIaF), Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23898814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: "Mother said at birth, 'Boy, you better only take what you can hold.'/So I stood there in the sun, only minutes young/With love and mercy all around/And that's where we began." - Cotton Jones, 'Only Minutes Young'.Sansa looks like a princess from a story; Tommen just gapes at the sight of her. Her ivory gown seems to glow through the light of those crystal windows he always found so pretty, and she’s wearing a grown woman’s skirts and bodice, not a little girl’s. Suddenly he feels even more a baby, cheeks stained apple red, averting his gaze in near shame until Mother jerks sharply on his arm and forces him to look back up again, at the waiting crowd filling the pews of the sept. The only thing that makes him feel any better is that her cloak seems just as big on her as his does on him. As though they were just playing a game. Cella and him used to dress up and play games, although they never pretended to be husband and wife. But maybe if he can pretend it is not real, and just a fancy, he will feel better.(In which Sansa is wed to Tommen, not Tyrion).
Relationships: Myrcella Baratheon & Tommen Baratheon, Tommen Baratheon & Cersei Lannister, Tommen Baratheon & Kevan Lannister, Tommen Baratheon & Sansa Stark, Tommen Baratheon/Sansa Stark
Comments: 43
Kudos: 316





	Only minutes young

**Author's Note:**

> This fic predicates upon an AU in which Sansa is married off to Tommen instead of Tyrion, with the expectation that their children will someday rule Winterfell.

Tommen is playing with Ser Pounce and Lady Whiskers when Uncle Kevan comes to tell him he will be married. He almost does not hear him, he is so involved in making sure Lady Whiskers does not hog the yarn. She is a horrible bully to poor Ser Pounce because she knows knights have to obey their ladies. She is bigger too, even though she and Ser Pounce are from the same litter. Just like how Myrcella was always taller than him, even though she is only a year older. Mother says it does not matter and he will be as tall and strong as his father someday, but Tommen only cared that when he and Myrcella fought over a toy, she could easily hold it over his head, laughing.

Still, he misses her very much. He cried every night for a whole week when she was sent away to Dorne, even though he promised her he would not. Tommen is a Baratheon and so he is supposed to be very brave, but sometimes he thinks Joff and Cella used all the bravery up, so there was none left by the time he came along. Cella says Joff isn’t brave, he’s a bully, like Lady Whiskers, only much worse. Tommen agrees, although he would never say it aloud, in case Joff or Mother heard. Mother says he needs to be brave like Joffrey, and Cella says he needs to be brave like Father. Tommen is never sure which is correct, although Joffrey and Father are very much alike. They both hit and screamed when they didn’t get their way.

Tommen mostly cries when he doesn’t get his way, and so he cries when his uncle makes Septa take the kittens away so they can speak privately. He is still sniffling angrily, wiping at his watery eyes with a clenched fist, when Kevan takes him by the hand and leads him down one of the many stone paths winding through the royal gardens. The stones underfoot are red, just like the walls around them, just like Tommen’s satin doublet, just like the splotches on his face from his tears. He is glad he’s crying in front of Uncle Kevan and not Grandfather or Mother, who would both be very angry. Grandfather might threaten to use his whipping boy, and Mother would embrace him at first, then curl her lip and tell him that Joffrey would never weep like a babe.

Joffrey does cry, though. Tommen has kept careful count of all the times he’s cried. Last week he cried when he jammed his finger on a door. It turned purple for a little while. Tommen has an excellent memory, better than Joffrey or Myrcella. Uncle Tyrion says it’s because he likes to read, and that he should study more history. Tommen doesn’t like his lessons; the maester instructing him always changes from week to week, and they don’t let him take them outdoors, instead shutting him up in a little room with his books and slates. Also, most of history is either frightening or boring. Tommen mostly only likes the parts with the dragons, even if he doesn’t think he should ever like to meet one. 

Cella would; she would pick up her skirts and run right up to one. Joff would probably try to shoot it with his crossbow. The thought of a giant dragon chasing his shrieking brother is almost enough to make Tommen smile and giggle to himself, but then he realizes that Uncle Kevan is still talking about him marrying Sansa. Sansa was supposed to marry Joff, but now he is going to wed Margaery. Tommen likes Margaery; she’s nice, although not as nice as Sansa, even if she’s prettier. But that’s just because Sansa is so pale and sad. Tommen thinks she would probably be the most beautiful girl in the world if she were happy. Her hair reminds him of a red lion’s mane, and her eyes are as blue as the sky over the sea. He’s not upset at the thought of marrying her, he decides, he’s just confused. 

“I thought I was supposed to have a betrothal first,” he tells Uncle Kevan. Tommen likes him better than Grandfather, who never smiles and never let Tommen sit on his lap when he was small. Kevan used to, though, and his lady wife, Aunt Dorna, never scared Tommen the way Aunt Genna sometimes did with her loud laughs and toothy smiles. “Are Sansa and I betrothed now? Until I come of age?” Although, Joffrey is getting married soon, and he’s not even of age yet. But he’s the King, so Tommen supposes that doesn’t matter. The King can get married whenever he pleases.

“No,” says Kevan gently. “But it will be like a betrothal- you will marry Lady Sansa now, and in several years time, when you are less a boy and more a man-,”

“When I’m ten?” Tommen asks eagerly. He can’t wait to be ten, although he is only eight and a half now. He wrests his hand from his uncle’s and straightens his shoulders, sucking in his belly, to show he could be a man soon, almost. Maybe. When Uncle Jaime comes home, he can show Tommen how to fight with tourney swords. Mother promised. And soon he will be tall enough for a real horse, not just a pony. 

Kevan hesitates, smiles thinly. “Perhaps a little longer than that. Tommen, it’s important that you understand- when you and Sansa have children someday, you will rule Winterfell and the North.”

Tommen frowns, not liking the sound of that in the least. “But I don’t want Winterfell. I don’t like the North. It’s too cold and there’s no tourneys or mummers’ troupes. And they don’t have the same sweets.” He remembers, from when they visited Winterfell. They had very good lemon cakes, but the lemon trees probably aren’t there anymore, because the Ironborn burned Winterfell to the ground. At least, that’s what he heard happened. 

Kevan ignores his complaints. “You’ll be a young man then, and you will be ready to rule as a lord should. Sansa will help you as your lady wife; the northerners will respect her claim as a Stark. In time, they will come to respect you as well, and your son will inherit Winterfell from you.”

Tommen pulls a face at that; he doesn’t want to think about being old and grey and living in the frigid North, ruling a ruined castle, surrounded by people who won’t like him much at all, because Joff killed their Lord Eddard, after all. Maybe Sansa would be happy to be back home, but he wouldn’t. He tries to picture a baby of theirs- both of them, mixed up, but just comes up with a pink lump with red hair and green eyes, or yellow hair and big blue eyes. Either way, it won’t really look like a Stark, will it?

But that’s alright. He doesn’t look much like a Baratheon. That’s why Uncle Stannis spread those lies about him and Cella and Joff. Because they don’t look like Father. But Tommen thinks he could, maybe- he could be tall like Father someday, and grow a big beard, and even if his eyes are green, well, Mother says Father’s mother was an Estermont, who had green eyes too. Maybe if he learns to fight with a hammer, everyone will see that he is really Father’s son, a proper Baratheon. 

“But why do we have to get married now?” he asks Uncle Kevan, who says it is because Grandfather means to send them both back to Casterly Rock, where they will be safe and Tommen can receive a ‘proper education’. Tommen almost starts to cry again at that; he doesn’t want to leave here- the Red Keep is his home and always has been. He likes the Rock, of course, but it’s not home. 

Tommen loves the keep and its red walls and Lannister and Baratheon banners; he loves all the cats and dogs, the litters of puppies and kittens licking at everyone’s heels, and the warm, cozy kitchen where all the cooks smile at him. He even likes the Great Hall, even if the Iron Throne frightens him all the more when Joff is sitting on it. He likes playing in the Queen’s Ballroom with its walls made entirely of silver mirrors, and he likes the high crystal windows in the Royal Sept, even if he usually falls asleep during services. 

He likes the grand library, where Uncle Tyrion sometimes used to show him the best places to hide, and he likes the godswood overlooking the river, and the gardens he’s in now, even Myrcella’s little flower garden, now overgrown and abandoned in her absence. He promised her he would look after it, but then came the siege and he wasn’t allowed to go outside at all for weeks on end. Maybe he’d feel better if he were going back to Casterly Rock with her instead. Cella feels like home, even when they’re not in King’s Landing. 

He promised he would be brave for her. Tommen swallows and manages to keep his tears from leaking down his cheeks, instead asking Uncle Kevan in a throaty voice if he can see Mother. Maybe she’ll make it so he doesn’t have to get married and go at all. But Uncle Kevan tells him that Grandfather sent Mother to her rooms and she’s not to have any visitors for the rest of the day, not even him. Once Mother sent him to his rooms after he threw a tantrum, but she let Cella come play with him and his kittens after dinner. 

Tommen thinks he hates Grandfather just a little, for that, even if it’s wrong to hate your grandsire. 

On his wedding day he is dressed in white and gold, not red or green or yellow, as Mother would usually put him in. Less green since the Tyrells came, though. Tommen frowns at his clouded reflection in the looking glass; despite his fine new clothes and long cape, he still looks like a fat little baby. That’s what Joffrey would say. A fat, useless, little whelp. Joffrey will be there today, watching Tommen get married before him. He won’t be happy about that. Tommen bites his lower lip until the churning in his stomach goes away. 

That’s one good thing to think of, as Cella would tell him to. There will be no Joff and his nasty games at Casterly Rock. No hitting or pinching or kicking. No threatening to drown his cats. Sometimes that makes Tommen so mad he really does feel like screaming and punching back, only the one time he tried, when he was six and Joffrey ten, his brother walloped him so hard in the stomach he couldn’t breathe, and had to curl up in a ball on the ground. 

Mother says all brothers fight like this, and Tommen must learn to stand up for himself if he wants Joffrey’s respect. But sometimes Tommen thinks she really means herself. If he doesn’t learn to stand up for himself he will never get her respect. But she’s Mother. Tommen doesn’t care if she respects him, so long as she loves him, and she does. She must. She sent him away to Rosby to save him when the city was attacked. Uncle Stannis would have killed him. Tommen doesn’t like thinking about that. He always liked playing with Shireen, when she was at court, but Mother says Stannis would have killed him and Cella and Joff anyways, because he’s a greedy traitor.

He is anxiously mussing with his curls when Mother finally comes into the room. Tommen’s hair is blonde, but lighter than any of his siblings or even Mother’s own; it’s a paler, white gold, more like Uncle Tyrion’s than anyone else’s, although Uncle Kevan says Grandfather’s hair looked like that as a boy, too. No one is supposed to mention that, though, because comparing Tyrion to Grandfather is a good way to make Grandfather very, very angry. Tommen can always tell. He’s good at knowing when people are angry, even if they don’t show it like Father or Joff.

Now he looks at Mother, hoping she isn’t angry, too, and runs to hug her, just in case. She smells like lavender and wine; he buries his face against her chest and is relieved when she embraces him just as tightly, her long golden hair briefly covering his head like a warm blanket. “My precious boy,” she says, drawing back, her hands on his shoulders. “Look at you, sweetling. You’re all grown up. You look just like Joffrey did at your age.” 

They both know that’s not true, but Tommen smiles tremulously anyways. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he says, plaintive. “I don’t want to get married, not really, but they said I had to.” He doesn’t want her to think he’s happy or excited, or she might think he doesn’t love her anymore. And he’s not. And he does. Sometimes Mother is very angry with him for no reason and says things that make him cry, but it’s not the sort of anger that makes him want to crawl under his bed and hide. He used to do that when Father yelled, even if it wasn’t at him. He just wanted it all to stop. Why couldn’t they just be nice and happy with each other?

If Tommen were king, he’d make it the law. No one would be able to scream and hit their wives and children. Or their brothers and sisters. They’d all have to get along. But that’s stupid. He’s not the King, Joffrey is.

“Of course you don’t,” Mother smooths back his curls and straightens the shoulders of his doublet, slightly too big for him. “You’re just a little boy.”

“You said I was all grown up,” he reminds her. She frowns, and he stills. 

“You’re growing up,” Mother amends. “But you are still my little boy. And you deserve far better than this farce,” her tone sours into something else entirely. She looks like she’s smelling something foul. “I would have found you a worthy wife when you were older. A good girl.”

“Sansa’s a good girl,” Tommen says, feeling that he can’t be scolded for saying it, because it’s true. Sansa never yells or hits or calls people names, even when Joffrey is horrible to her. Even when the Kingsguard beat her. Tommen has never seen it, but he’s heard people whisper about it. If he was braver, he would tell Joff to stop it, because the King is not supposed to make his knights hit ladies and tear their clothes off, but Joffrey doesn’t even listen to Mother most days, nevermind Tommen. “She is, Mother,” he says, at the look on her face. “Septa says we have to forgive our enemies, and she’s not really my enemy, is she? Only her brother.” 

He thinks for a moment, then brightens, “And maybe once we’re married, she can write to her brother and tell him-,”

“And tell him what?” Mother snaps. “Don’t be foolish, Tommen. And do not quote Septa Eglantine at me. You are a sweet, dear boy, but you are too easily taken in. Sansa is our ward. Her family has been disgraced. They would kill us all if they could. She is not your friend, and she ought not to be your wife. But your grandsire is determined to make you a bed of thorns, I see. He will come to rue this decision, mark my words.” She looks at Tommen once more, and behind her cold contempt, he sees the grief in her green eyes.

Maybe she is a little afraid to, to see him go away from her again.

“I will write you, Mother,” he takes one of her hands in both of his small ones, and squeezes. “I promise.”

Her gaze softens for a moment, before she removes her hand from him. “You’re afraid. You should not be afraid, Tommen. You should be angry. Now come. We will shame them with our pride,” she instructs him, inhaling and putting her serene queenly mask back on. Tommen watches closely, and tries to mimic it on his own round face, smoothing back his furrowed, worried brow and his pursed mouth. He offers her his arm, and she takes it, tucking her hand into the crook of his wavering elbow.

Sansa looks like a princess from a story; Tommen just gapes at the sight of her. Her ivory gown seems to glow through the light of those crystal windows he always found so pretty, and she’s wearing a grown woman’s skirts and bodice, not a little girl’s. Suddenly he feels even more a baby, cheeks stained apple red, averting his gaze in near shame until Mother jerks sharply on his arm and forces him to look back up again, at the waiting crowd filling the pews of the sept. The only thing that makes him feel any better is that her cloak seems just as big on her as his does on him. As though they were just playing a game. Cella and him used to dress up and play games, although they never pretended to be husband and wife. But maybe if he can pretend it is not real, and just a fancy, he will feel better. He tries to smile at Sansa; she looks as though she’s been crying, although her face is dry now. She smiles briefly back, before it vanishes at once when she meets Mother’s eyes.

Before they can reach the altars of the Mother and the Father, Grandfather beckons Mother to take her place beside him and Uncle Kevan. She stiffens and flares, but ultimately lets go of Tommen, but not before pressing a final kiss to his scalp. Tommen feels even smaller without her tall figure beside him, and looks around, gaze alighting on Uncle Tyrion, who gives him a strange sort of smile that, as usual, he can’t quite be sure of. He thinks it’s supposed to be encouraging. Joffrey is standing just beside Sansa. His smile is not encouraging in the least.

Tommen freezes for an instant, not wanting to take another step closer, and he can feel Grandfather tense in irritation behind him, but what really spurs him to move at last is the look on Sansa’s face. She looks like she would rather be anywhere else at all than with Joff standing there like he was her father. He killed Sansa’s father. Tommen remembers. Him and Cella snuck off to look at the heads once, but they did not look like people by then, just black lumps.

He promised Cella he would be brave. Mother told him he should be angry. Tommen stares, then walks forward, trying to keep his head held high, even if he is scared. He can pretend to be brave, and part of him really is angry, at least a little. It’s not fair. Joff was supposed to send Lord Eddard to the Wall, not cut off his head. Then Sansa wouldn’t be so sad. Tommen was supposed to have a betrothal before he was married. He was supposed to stay here forever with Mother and Cella, but Uncle Tyrion sent Cella to Dorne, and now Grandfather is sending him to the Rock.

And Joffrey is making them both afraid. Tommen takes his place across from Sansa. The septon looks between the two of them and smiles faintly, then begins the ceremony. Tommen has never felt more wide awake in a sept, despite the thick clouds of incense and the smell of candle wax and dusty prayer books. He barely even blinks; his eyes begin to burn and hurt, but he can’t wipe at his face- they’ll think he’s crying. Sansa isn’t crying, although he can tell she wants to from the way she swallows as though she has a sore throat. Joffrey smirks through it. Mother stands as still as a statue, her expression frozen in cold displeasure. Grandfather and Uncle Kevan both look satisfied. Uncle Tyrion looks curious. 

None of the Tyrells are there, not even Margaery. 

When it’s finally time to change the cloaks, Tommen starts to sweat, afraid he’ll drop it or mess things up so badly everyone will stop being angry with each other and focus just on him. He’s so nervous he almost doesn’t see Joffrey squeeze at Sansa’s chest as he removes her Stark cloak. She closes her eyes for a moment but doesn’t flinch. Tommen just watches and for an instant, doesn’t have to pretend to be angrier than he is. The Lannister cloak in his hands is so very heavy. He steps up onto the stool left out for him and nearly drops it. Joffrey snickers, not bothering to hide it. Sansa raises her chin slightly, as if to tell him to get on with it.

It takes a long time, but Tommen finally gets the Lannister scarlet and gold draped around her shoulders. He stays on the stool, knowing they’ll have to kiss, and she is already so much taller than him. They are over four years apart in age. She’s turning three and ten within the next moon, and he won’t be nine until after the new year. 

Sansa hunches slightly, so their heads are a little more even. A few people in the crowd are chuckling quietly, but then immediately go silent, probably when Mother or Grandfather look at them, Tommen thinks to himself. “With this kiss I pledge my love, and take you for my lord and husband,” Sansa says in a hoarse, tired voice.

He echoes her meekly, and their lips brush together for an instant. Cella used to tease him that his first kiss would come when he was a knight atop a great warhorse, crowning some fair lady his Queen of Love and Beauty. Sansa is a fair lady, but Tommen is no knight, and he’s scared of warhorses. Suddenly he feels angrier, to be so ashamed. It’s not fair. Everyone else gets the chance to prove themselves before they’re wed. But not him. This is just another nasty trick being played on him, and Joffrey is laughing.

Tommen is sullen for most of the feast, barely touching his food, and ignoring any halfhearted attempts to make conversation. Sansa doesn’t talk or eat much either. But when the dancing starts, Uncle Kevan tells him they must lead it, and Tommen reluctantly obeys. He knows they look silly, even if he is a good dancer, and that is not a lie- he’s used to dancing with Cella, who was taller than him, but only by a little. The snickers and giggles continue. Mother is flushed red with fury and wine. The Tyrells are nowhere to be seen. 

After that, Tommen shuffles back to his seat, rigid with humiliation. Sansa dances a few more rounds, until she ends up partnered with Joffrey, who whispers on and on to her, still smirking, and before he releases her presses a quick kiss to her lips. If Tommen was bigger and braver, he would jump to his feet and defend her. Instead he pushes his food around on his plate until she hurries back to her seat, flushed. “I’m sorry,” he says in a small voice, as Sansa takes a quick sip of her iced honey milk, but she acts as if she didn’t hear him at all.

There is no bedding, although there are a few drunken japes about it, mostly led by Joffrey, who says it’s a shame that Sansa will have to wait so long for Tommen to grow some hair in the right places. The only reason Joffrey does not dare say more is because he is seated in between Mother and Grandfather, and even if he is King, Tommen knows Joff is still scared of their grandsire, although he would never admit it. When the feasting is concluded, Mother and a few of her ladies escort them to the chambers that will be theirs until they leave the Red Keep in a fortnight. Tommen doesn’t want to think about that. 

Outside the door, Mother hugs and kisses him again, promises to come fetch him for breakfast on the morrow, tells him he has been very brave, but he knows it’s a lie. She’s so angry it makes her skin feel prickly against his, like the air before a thunderstorm. Tommen was always scared of storms, despite his family name. Cella wasn’t; she liked to watch the lightning fork across the bay and the rains sleet against the rooftops of the city far below. Tommen would curl up under the covers with a kitten or a book to distract himself from the the thunder and the howling winds.

Tommen enters first; Mother blocks Sansa’s path, and though he tries to listen, he can’t make out much of their muffled conversation outside the door. The waiting maid helps him undress, and standing barefoot in his smallclothes, Tommen picks at the ruffled linen collar against his neck, and feels shame. Mother was right. It is a farce, like something mummers would put on in a play. Sansa will never love him. She doesn’t even like him; she’s only nice because she is afraid. It will be years and years before he is a man grown. In the meantime, everyone will mock them, the same way they did cousin Tyrek and his baby wife, before he was killed in the riots.

It is very, very quiet when Sansa finally enters. The maids help her undress as well, and then go into the adjoining room to sleep- to spy on them, Tommen thinks indignantly. He doesn’t know why. Sansa might not like him, but she wouldn’t hurt him, and how could he ever hurt her? They stand on opposite sides of the too big-bed, and then Tommen yawns in spite of himself- he couldn’t hold it in any longer. He’s so tired he’s not even that hungry, despite eating barely any of his dinner. Sansa stares at him for a moment, and her lips tremble as if she were about to smile, and then it turns into a noise like a sob. 

She ducks her head and then quickly clambers into bed. “Good night, my prince.” She blows out the candle on her night table, and Tommen hesitantly does the same, then crawls into bed beside her. His bare feet accidentally brush against her warm leg, and he feels her jerk away. 

“Sorry,” he whispers again. “Sorry, Sansa.”

“It’s alright,” she whispers back after a moment. “Go to sleep.”

Tommen goes to sleep, and dreams of the fawn he once adopted from the Kingswood when he was six. Father had killed its mother on a hunt, and said he could keep it, and smiled when Tommen squealed with glee and threw his arms around his legs to embrace him. Tommen doesn’t remember hugging Father much, or Father hugging him. The occasional pat on the head, maybe. 

Mostly he doesn’t think Father liked him much, even if he liked him better than Joff. Sometimes Father would argue with Mother about how ‘coddled’ Tommen was. Tommen hated that most of all, because Mother would get so upset and inevitably, they would start to shout, and then Father would hit her. 

He would almost rather Father had just hit him instead, although Cella says once when they were just babies, Father hit Joff so hard he knocked out two of his teeth, and his mouth filled up with blood, and he went around lisping and drooling for a week, crying every time he had to eat. She says she heard Mother talking about it with Uncle Jaime once. 

But in his dream about the fawn, Tommen goes out to the stables to visit it one day, as he always does, and finds Joffrey skinning it. It used to be tan but now it is pink and bloody, and Septa cries out in horror and Tommen vomits right down the front of his tunic, and Cella is screaming, and Joffrey just says Father will be proud that at least one of his sons isn’t a little craven. Father didn’t look very proud when he found out, but he didn’t beat Joffrey for it, either, just shouted at him and then told Tommen to stop sniveling, they’d get him another fawn.

Tommen didn’t want another fawn, he wanted that one. He hadn’t even picked out a name for it yet.

In his dream, it is mostly the same as the memory, only it is just him and Joff in the sept, and Joffrey is skinning the fawn in the same place where Sansa stood, atop the white and grey Stark cloak, now smeared with blood and gore. Tommen wakes with a yelp of fear, and finds that is is very early morning; Sansa is already awake, looking at him in concern, and when he tries to fight back his sniffles, she gets up and gets him a cup of water. 

“Thank you,” he says, after the third gulp.

“Did you have a nightmare?” she murmurs; she doesn’t look like a grown lady in the dark; in her plain shift and with her auburn curls falling in her face, she looks no older than Cella.

Tommen shakes his head guiltily, but says nothing. He puts the cup aside and lays back down, still shaky. “I’m sorry Joff wasn’t nice to you at our wedding,” he says after a moment. Maybe she will start to like him more if she knows how badly he feels. “I wish he wasn’t the King so I could have protected you.” But that’s a lie. Even if Joff wasn’t King, Tommen still wouldn’t have done anything, because he’s useless and a coward. 

“You shouldn’t say such things,” she says after a long moment. “His Grace has been very kind.”

Tommen doesn’t know why she’s lying, until he thinks that maybe she is afraid someone will hear them talking about Joffrey, and they will get in trouble. “When we go to the Rock,” he suggests timidly after a moment, “I’ll start training as a page, and then maybe I can be a good husband.”

“You are already a very good husband,” Sansa tells him, and to his surprise she reaches over and takes his hand in the dark. He can’t tell if she’s just saying that to make him feel better or not.

“How?” he asks miserably.

“You apologize,” she replies softly. “Even when things aren’t your fault. You care.”

“You apologize too,” he says after a moment. “You’re always apologizing.”

She takes her hand away, and her voice sounds different when she says, “I am only showing your family how very sorry I am for my brother’s treason.”

Tommen thinks about that, and then his lip curls. He feels less scared and shaky and a little angry again. “That’s not fair,” he says. It’s what Cella would say. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything. You didn’t do anything wrong. Joff’s the one who should be sorry.”

Sansa sucks in a quick little breath. “Tommen-,”

“It’s true!” he wriggles over to face her, propped up on an elbow. “Just- just because he’s the King doesn’t mean he can… Kings can do things wrong too. I learned about them in my lessons. Lots of Kings have done wrong.”

“It’s not our place to discuss such things,” she says, and there is something else in her tone. She lowers her voice to barely above a whisper, “People would be very upset if they heard you speaking like this. They would think it was my doing. Do you understand, Tommen? Please understand. I just want to go away from here. So you musn’t cause any fuss, no matter what Joffrey or your mother do.”

He blinks, ponders that, and then nods. “I don’t want you to be in trouble.” Now he feels guilty all over again. “I’m sorry, my lady.”

“I know.” Maybe she smiles at him in the dark, he’s not sure. She pats him on the shoulder, then rolls over. “Let’s go back to sleep for now, alright?”

The coming days all blend together. Sansa gets new clothes, lots of them. Servants are always rushing about packing things in trunks. Mother keeps him by her side all day, every day, except when he has his new riding lessons with the stable master. He’s going to ride a horse to Casterly Rock, not a pony, Uncle Kevan says, and so he must get used to being in the saddle. Tommen is too afraid for the first few days to do much but clutch the reins, but by the fifth day he’s grown a little bolder to direct the palfrey where he wants it go, even if he dreads the thought of having to ever use the spurs or crop.

He doesn’t see much of Sansa, except at dinner, occasionally, and every night when they go to bed. Sometimes he brings his kittens to bed with them, which Sansa likes; to his surprise, Lady Whiskers is much nicer to her than she ever is to him; she doesn’t hiss or scratch or run away, just rubs her chin along Sansa’s freckled knuckles, over and over again. He’s never seen Sansa with so many freckles before; she got them from spending so much time with Margaery and her ladies, she tells him, but not anymore. Tommen wonders if Margaery is angry with Sansa about something, or maybe just too busy planning her and Joff’s wedding with her mother and grandmother. 

“We had kittens at Winterfell,” Sansa tells him once. “Litters thrice a year. My brother Bran used to love to play with them; one time he climbed into the rafters in one of the dining halls with two of them. My mother was so angry, but he climbed down with them clinging to his shirt, and then she kept wanting to laugh.” She tells Tommen this without looking up from rubbing Lady Whiskers’ soft pink belly, and then seems to regret it, flushing red. 

Bran is dead now. Tommen remembers praying to the Seven with Cella that he would live. He liked Bran; even when they sparred and Brandon won every time, he never made fun of Tommen or called him names. He just asked to go again. Tommen might have even liked it, if Joff hadn’t been there laughing with the Hound the whole time. He looks at Sansa’s face, but she won’t take her eyes off of Lady. 

“I miss my sister,” he says instead. “It’s not as fun to play without her. Cella knew all the best games. And she was really brave. Everyone says so. She didn’t even cry when Uncle Tyrion sent her to Dorne.”

“I miss the princess too,” Sansa says. “She was very kind. And very brave,” she adds, at his pout. “You’re right. It was brave of her not to cry when she was sent away.”

Tommen sighs and rolls over onto his back, ignoring Ser Pounce’s chirp. “I cry all the time. Uncle Kevan says I have to be stronger when we’re at the Rock. Uncle Jaime never cried when he was a boy. That’s what he says, anyways.”

“Sometimes you can cry and still be brave.” Sansa has finally lifted Lady Whiskers out of her lap. She hesitates for a moment, then says in a voice barely above a whisper, “My father was very brave, and he cried.”

This is news to Tommen; Lord Stark always scared him a little, with his flat, low voice and his cold grey eyes. He’s glad Sansa’s eyes aren’t grey; blue’s a much nicer color. “When?”

“Once when my mother took ill after she had my brother Rickon, he cried then,” Sansa recounts. Then she gives a wavering smile. “But she got better. He was only scared he might lose her.”

“If you ever got sick, I’d cry for you,” Tommen offers gamely, reaching over and patting her hand.

“Thank you,” says Sansa. “That’s very sweet, my prince.”

It is a bright and clear the morning they leave the Red Keep with Uncle Kevan. Most of the royal household has gathered to see them off, even the Tyrells. Mother is wearing a green so dark it’s almost a blackish brown, and it makes her light eyes seem to glow in the autumn sunshine spilling across the castle walls. Grandfather looks pleased; Tommen doesn’t know if he ought to be relieved or upset by that. Joffrey seems a little put-out, probably, Tommen thinks, because they won’t be here for him to torment anymore. 

Joff’s still mostly distracted by Margaery, who is annoying him because she is saying her goodbyes to Sansa. Tommen knows Margaery and Sansa are friends, and Margaery seems genuinely upset to see her go; she embraces her how Cella embraced him before he left, and promises to visit the Rock once she and Joffrey are wed. When she finally lets Sansa climb up into the saddle, Margaery retreats to Joffrey, who immediately takes her arm. Tommen doesn’t think he really loves her. Everyone says he does, but they don’t know Joff the way Tommen does. 

He might like Margaery because she’s so pretty and sweet and smells like flowers, but he doesn’t love her. Joffrey doesn’t love anything, except maybe Mother. Tommen knows he shouldn’t think about such things, but he thinks Joffrey will start to hit and pinch and kick Margaery one day, too, or make one of the Kingsguard do it for him. He misses Ser Barristan. Ser Barristan once told him that a true knight would never raise a hand to a lady or a child or an unarmed man. 

When Tommen told Mother that, she laughed shrilly and said that Ser Barristan had an odd idea of chivalry after his time serving the Mad King. Tommen’s not sure what that means, but Cella said it probably meant that Aerys had been evil and mad, and Ser Barristan and the other knights hadn’t been able to stop him, because they were sworn to obey his commands. 

If Tommen were king, he’d want his knights to stop him before he could do something bad. But he’s not. And he’s not even a knight, either. He will be a page, though, at Casterly Rock, and once he is ten he can be a squire serving under Ser Lucion Lannister, the son of his grandmother Joanna’s cousin Ser Damion Lannister. There are so many Lannister cousins at the Rock that Tommen can never keep them all straight. Most of them look alike, too, to make matters much worse. Uncle Kevan says he will try to teach him everyone’s names and titles before they arrive, so Tommen does not look foolish. Sansa will have to learn too, because someday she will be their lady.

He looks at Sansa now; she is sitting perfectly straight in the saddle, the warm breeze ruffling her hair. It’s not bound up in the elaborate court fashion with a veil or hairnets or beads and jewels, but streaming down her back in a simple auburn plait. Even braided, it still nearly reaches her waist. Tommen wonders if she is ever sick of having it so long. It’s very thick and it looks very heavy to carry around all day. His own hair has been freshly cut; for nearly all his life he’s worn his curls to his shoulders, like Joff, but Grandfather had a barber cut it short yesterday, so his curls stop at his ears. Mother was furious when she saw it; she said he looked like a shorn sheep. Joffrey pulled his hair when he saw it, and when Tommen yelped in pain Ser Meryn Trant laughed. 

Tommen is proud of his own mount; he’s decided to call his white palfrey Orys, after the founder of his house, because he is still a Baratheon. Uncle Kevan and Uncle Tyrion thought it was funny, but Sansa told him very seriously that it was a good, strong name. Joffrey said it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard of, but Joffrey named his sword Lion’s Tooth, which isn’t all that interesting, if you ask Tommen. He asks Sansa what her dappled grey mare is called, but she doesn’t know its name. 

Finally, Uncle Kevan, at the head of their honor guard of redcloaks, gives the command for the gates to be opened. Tommen’s palfrey shifts under him in anticipation, eager to start trotting, and despite his sadness and fear he feels a quick flash of excitement. This is different from being sent away to Rosby. Everyone says the war is almost won; Uncle Stannis couldn’t take the city and the northmen have returned to the northern Riverlands because Ironborn have invaded their home. 

Mother comes up to his palfrey as the procession of guards begins to move. He doesn’t like the tense look on her face or the anger in her eyes. “Write me as soon as you reach the Rock,” she tells him sternly, taking his small hand in her own. “I will visit when I am able. I know you will be a brave boy. Your father was a King. You will need to be strong in my house.”

Grandfather might say it was ‘his’ house, but he is saying his goodbyes to Uncle Kevan, who is nodding intently like Tommen does with his maesters when he’s pretending to listen to their lessons. Uncle Tyrion is saying goodbye to Sansa, telling her to take good care of Tommen, and saying she may come to like Lannisport very much, because it is much smaller and cleaner than King’s Landing. Sansa smiles waveringly, then spurs her mare forward.

“Good luck, Tommen,” Uncle Tyrion says, patting Orys’ flank. “You’ve been given two great boons. Lady Sansa and the Rock. See that you don’t waste them.” His words are almost bitter, but he smiles warmly, despite his scarred face, and Tommen leans down impulsively to his hug him, although it’s more of a pat on the head. Mother scowls, and Joffrey snickers under his breath.

“Farewell, little brother,” he says, drawing back his shoulders. “Perhaps Margaery and I will take a tour of the West after our wedding. It will be so lovely to see Lady Sansa again… and you, of course.”

Tommen looks to Sansa, dreading her flinch of fear and disgust, but her face is blank and smooth as glass. “Farewell, Your Grace,” she says calmly, as she rides past him, and Tommen realizes then that for the first time ever, it is Sansa looking down at Joff from the saddle, her head held high. 

He smiles a little, and Joffrey’s sneer turns to a glare, but he can’t do anything about it- they’re moving away, through the gates, and the Blackwater Rush is opening up in front of them, and beyond that, the Gold Road, shining in the afternoon sun. Tommen leans forward a little in the saddle, and triumphs in the fact that he doesn’t feel nervous or afraid that Orys will balk at the reins or try to throw him. He even keeps pace with Sansa’s mare, and she looks surprised to see him riding with confidence.

Once they’re out of the long shadow of the Red Keep, and the clamor and hum of the city is becoming more and more distant, Tommen watches in shock as Sansa’s entire demeanor shifts; she looks as though she’d just came in from a storm and flung off her soaking wet cloak. She seems… lighter. Happier. She genuinely smiles at a jape one of the soldiers riding near them makes a comment about the fair weather, and politely refuses Uncle Kevan’s offer of the wheelhouse when he rides back to them after an hour or so on the road. 

“I didn’t know you liked to ride, Sansa,” Tommen tells her as they near the grassy meadow where Uncle Kevan means to have them stop for lunch. He doesn’t remember her riding much to King’s Landing from Winterfell. Mostly she sat in the wheelhouse with him and Mother and Cella. Except for when she went riding with Joffrey that time… He remembers Lady and feels queasy. Sansa’s wolf had terrified him, but that didn’t mean he wanted her killed. It wasn’t fair. Everyone knew it was Arya’s direwolf that had bitten Joff, anyways.

Father had told Lord Eddard to get Sansa a dog instead. Tommen wonders if she’d want one from the Rock’s kennels. Maybe if it looked like a wolf? 

“I do,” Sansa says quickly, “Only I never had much chance to practice before Margaery- before Lady Margaery came to court and invited me on her hunts and hawkings. I like to ride very much now.” The tight ranks of men around them have loosened up and spread out. She looks around, the sunlight making her hair glow like copper, and then gives a strange sort of smile he has never seen on her before. It is almost sly. “My prince, would you like to race to the meadow?”

Tommen has never raced horses before. He opens his mouth to call to Uncle Kevan and ask if they can, then shuts it. He’s supposed to be strong now. He’s supposed to grow up. He can’t keep asking for every little thing. Father used to say a man who had to beg leave was no man at all. “Yes,” he says firmly, and digs in his heels with a cry. “Come on, Orys!”

Sansa seems startled he replied so swiftly, and he hears her exclaim as she spurs her own mount on and tries to keep up with his headstart; quickly they are neck and neck and some of the men in the distance are laughing to see them go charging off the road. Uncle Kevan calls out after them, sounding concerned, but for once Tommen does not care. The wind is pounding against his face and he smiles in spite of it, enjoying the feeling of his hair being pushed back from his scalp. 

Sansa wins by half a horse; as they both slow back down to a trot, he sees her flush, not just from the race; she seems almost ashamed to have won. “I’m sorry, Tommen,” she calls out to him worriedly, “you nearly beat me- I should have given you more warning, my lord-,”

Why is she sorry she beat him? Cella wouldn’t be; she would laugh and ask to go again. “I’m not sorry,” he says, even if he is disappointed to have lost. “It was fun. You ride well. I’ve never seen you smile and laugh like that, ever.”

Her plait is coming loose; Sansa ducks her head and busies herself with fixing it, but he can still see a slight smile on her face, all the same. 

For the first few days of their journey he sees Sansa smile and laugh more than he ever has in a year of knowing her. Tommen is so used to looking for her in a crowded room and finding her with her head bowed, hands clasped before her, or else shrinking back against the wall, face pale with fright or horror at something Joffrey’s just said or done, that he is happily startled to see this new side of her. She seems more like Cella when she smiles, more like an ordinary girl of nearly three-and-ten, not a sad porcelain doll or a ghost drifting in and out of the godswood. 

It makes him feel better, too. He hasn’t been to the Rock since before Father died, but he does know it well enough- Mother always insisted they visit at least once a year- and maybe once they have arrived he can show her all his favorite places, like the Golden Gallery full of gleaming treasures, and the Stone Garden, where plants grow from sunlight pouring in through cracks and water dripping down the mossy walls. It could be like an adventure, and for once he’ll be the leader, not Joff or Cella. The thought of that excites Tommen, at least at first, but after her initial high spirits, Sansa’s mood seems to turn, and she doesn’t laugh anymore and seldom smiles.

At first Tommen thinks maybe she is just tired of riding; he knows he is, as much as Uncle Kevan forces him to ride Orys for at least half the day, every day- and he eagerly offers to ride in the wheelhouse with her instead- Uncle Kevan can’t say no to that, can he?- but Sansa insists she wants to ride, and refuses to set foot in the wheelhouse, to Tommen’s confusion. Then he supposes that maybe she just misses the rich food and soft rooms of court, and asks if her blankets and bedding can be changed, to his uncle’s complete confusion, and tries to convince Kevan to let them stop in one of the bustling towns they pass by so Sansa can have some lemon cakes. But Sansa says the food is fine, and she eats it all every night without complaint, even when the bread is hard or there is nothing to drink but water

Yet every other night Tommen hears her crying in the wheelhouse they share, and he’s not sure if it’s because of nightmares, or just because she’s miserable here, with him, on her way to Casterly Rock. He almost hopes it’s nightmares, as horrible as it sounds to wish someone bad dreams. Cella would pull his ear for that, or smack him upside the head. But the weather holds sunny and fair, and Sansa’s eyes are dry each morning when she sits down to eat beside him. Still, she is nice enough to him during the day, although they don’t usually race horses. They play games, though, with Ser Pounce and Lady Whiskers and the soldiers’ dogs, and sometimes local children who come out with their parents to watch the procession of Lannisters pass through. Sansa teaches him how to play cards with a gilded pack gifted to Tommen for their wedding, and sometimes they roll dice in the dirt and makes up wagers for it, trading bright blue beads from a broken necklace of Sansa’s. 

It broke when Ser Boros hit her so hard that his mailed fingers snagged in it and ripped it off her neck. Tommen remembers because he remembers finding one of the beads on the floor the next day. Once Father hit Mother so hard she vomited. Tommen did not see that but he knows it happened because he heard it; he was in the next room trying to get one of his kittens out from under a bed. He heard Mother yelling and Father curse and then an oomph and then Mother retching, because he must have walloped her in the stomach the way Joffrey once hit him. 

Sometimes they play tag, too. He’s never seen Sansa run before, and he’s surprised at how fast she is when she lifts her skirts a little. Maybe it’s just that her legs are so much longer than his, and he’s not very fast. He always lost the races he and Cella would run in the gardens. But he thinks he’s getting a little faster. Uncle Kevan is pleased with how much time he’s spending on his feet, moving about- he says Mother did Tommen a disservice by keeping him cooped up on a velvet cushion with a book or kitten in hand, but that’s not true. Mother was always bothering Tommen to be like Joffrey, to spend time in the yard around the older boys and learn how to shoot arrows and swing swords. Even if Joffrey wasn’t all that good at swinging swords. Ser Barristan used to say it was because he had no patience to correct his mistakes.

Tommen’s used to making mistakes, though. Only he feels like he keeps making them with Sansa, despite all the time they spend together now, and he doesn’t know how to make it better. How to make her better. They cross the Blackwater Rush after ten days on the Gold Road, then continue on west towards the mountains. Sansa has never seen them before; once she says seeing them on the horizon reminds her of being in the North, but she says that very quietly and very quickly, as if worried someone else might overhear and shout at her. 

Robb Stark raided in the northern mountains of the Westerlands once; never this far south. But now he’s back at Riverrun, marching for the North again. That’s what Uncle Kevan and his men say, because the Young Wolf can’t afford to make war in the south when he’s lost the North. Tommen supposes they mean because Theon Greyjoy killed Brandon and Rickon and burned Winterfell. He remembers Theon from their visit. He scared Tommen, with his cruel smirks and his sly laughter, even if some of his japes about Joffrey were funny. Tommen doesn’t know how he’d feel if someone killed Cella. He’d want to kill them back, maybe. Sometimes it feels like Cella is the only person in his family who really loves him without wanting him to change or be someone else.

“Are you sad that your brother and mother are going home?” he asks Sansa one night. They’ve both recently bathed and they are sitting by the small fire lit for them outside the wheelhouse. Sansa is combing out her hair, painstakingly, having divided it into sections first. One of the serving women offered to help her, but Sansa sent her away. Her comb is wooden and her knuckles are white where she grips it. The firelight makes her hair look a strange shade of burnt brownish red. Tommen is glad he doesn’t have to comb much of his hair anymore. He can just ruffle it with his hands and smooth it back or front. He squeezes at one of his arms, searching for a muscle. He feels stronger, but he doesn’t look it. 

Sansa pretends she didn’t hear him say that. Tommen stares into the fire for a moment longer, then says, “Maybe when the war is over, we can visit them.” He does not tell her that Uncle Kevan said he would rule Winterfell with her someday. Maybe there will be peace when winter comes, and they will sign a truce. That way Sansa could be his wife but still visit her family when she pleases. He’d like that. He could show them that he isn’t like Joffrey, that he’d never hurt her or insult her. 

“I don’t think so,” she says. Her voice is harder and flatter than usual.

“Why not?” he asks, genuinely baffled. “Don’t you miss them? I thought that was why you were crying at night.”

She whips her head around to look at him, and her eyes are gleaming with anger. “Don’t speak of them,” she says coldly. “Don’t you- don’t you ever speak of my family, I- you don’t know anything, you’re just a little child!” Her voice cracks at the end like she might cry or scream. She turns the comb over in her hand and then sets it down and puts her face in her hands, shoulders trembling. Tommen stays where he is, feeling queasy.

Finally she looks up at him, and her eyes are not gleaming with anger but with something else. “I’m sorry, Tommen,” she says hoarsely. “I- I should not have spoken to you in such a way. Please forgive me, it was not… That was not very wifely of me.”

Tommen thinks it was probably wifely- lots of wives must yell at their husbands, Mother always did. But instead he says, “I didn’t mean to make you angry. I just thought… you spoke about them before.”

“About my little brothers,” she says quickly. “Robb and my mother are traitors. I know that. I… I have no love for traitors.”

She is lying. Tommen watches her steadily. Once they called his father a traitor for rising up against Aerys, but Aerys deserved to be overthrown. He was not a just king. Is Joffrey a just king? If he has to think about it, it is hard and complicated, but if he doesn’t think about it and just feels, the answer is ‘no’. Joff is not a just king. Does Joff deserve to be overthrown and replaced by someone else? By Robb Stark or Uncle Stannis, or… or him? Tommen knows he’d make a terrible king. He’s not very brave and he’s not very clever and even though he’s spent more time in the saddle this past fortnight than in his entire life, he’s still not very fast or strong.

Anyways, if someone overthrew Joff and killed him the way Uncle Jaime killed Aerys, they would want to kill Tommen too. The way someone killed Rhaegar’s children. Tommen was never supposed to ever, ever talk about that because people spread nasty rumors that it was a Lannister’s doing, but Cella liked ghost stories, and she would tell him about the little princess and prince who were killed and how sometimes servants said you could hear them crying for their mama in Princess Elia’s old rooms. 

Just thinking about it gave Tommen a nightmare once; he dreamed he was running and running through the Red Keep, screaming for his mother and Cella, but no matter where he looked, he could not find them. The entire castle was empty; it was just him and something big and snarly prowling the throne room. It sounded like a whole pride of lions. He should have run to them and been unafraid, for his Lannister blood, but instead he found somewhere to hide. Outside, a wild storm raged, and the lightning had flashed green against the windowpanes. 

“Do you love me?” he asks instead, with a hopeful edge. He knows she likes him- well, most of the time. It can’t all be an act, because she could just ignore him whenever Uncle Kevan is not around. Mother was wrong about that. 

“Of course, my prince,” she says quickly. “You are my lord husband.”

She doesn’t love him. Father was Mother’s lord husband and she didn’t love him, or if she did, loving him made her very angry all the time. “Would you love me if I wasn’t?” he asks in a small voice.

Her face softens slightly. “Yes.” But that’s still not true. She doesn’t love him, she just feels badly for him. 

He yawns and ignores the hole in his stomach. “I want to go to sleep now.”

Once they reach the mountain passes they stay over for three days at Deep Den, which Tommen thinks is a funny castle because it is more underground than above, almost the opposite of the Rock. It used to scare him when he was little because it is dark and narrow and the rooms all smell a bit musty, like dead things, but he’s supposed to be braver now, so this time he boldly leads Sansa by the hand, telling her all about the last time they visited here, just after Joff’s twelfth name day. 

This was where Mother found out that Jon Arryn was dead. Tommen knows she never much liked him because he was always on Father’s side, but she didn’t seem very pleased he had died, either. She only said it was good because it meant Lady Lysa would leave court with her ‘snivelling wretch’ of a son. She thought Sweetrobin was a bad influence on Tommen, because he acted even more a baby than him. Tommen mostly felt sorry for him; Joffrey was awfully cruel to him, and only left him alone with old Lord Arryn took notice. Jon Arryn might have been old, but his keen blue eyes were still sharp as a hawk’s and near as intimidating.

Lady Lysa is Sansa’s aunt, but Sansa says she’s only ever met her the once, and she was so small then she doesn’t remember her at all. Tommen wonders if she’d rather be with her aunt and cousin Robert right now, in the Vale, where there is no war. But he knows better than to ask. Sansa doesn’t want to speak about her family with him, even if they are Arryns and not really traitors. 

On the third day, before they are due to leave, Uncle Kevan gets word of something, and takes Sansa into another room, ignoring Tommen’s demands that he come too. He is sullenly petting Ser Pounce when Uncle Kevan comes back out a little while later, but removes the cat and jumps to his feet. “Can I see Sansa now? Is she in trouble?” Tommen bites his lip, then blurts out, “If her brother did more treason, it’s not her fault! I don’t want her to be punished. You can’t punish her, Uncle, I won’t let you-,”

“Tommen,” Uncle Kevan says, a hand on his shoulder. “Sansa’s brother is dead. Her mother, too. They were all killed at her uncle’s wedding to a Frey.”

Tommen stares, confused. “But who killed them?”

“The Freys,” Uncle Kevan doesn’t like to talk about this, he can tell from the stiff look on his face. “House Frey has pledged themselves to the Iron Throne once more, and Robb Stark is dead. His wife is being held at Riverrun, but there will be a siege, no doubt, and once we’ve retaken it-,”

“But why did the Freys kill them?” Tommen knows he should be glad more people are loyal to them again, but he doesn’t feel glad. He feels sort of empty and hollow. “Why didn’t they take them prisoner?”

“You will understand the ways of war better when you are older, Tommen,” Kevan says. “I… I know this is difficult for a boy your age to understand. It was brutally done, and I cannot say I am happy for it, but ultimately this will lead to peace, and that is a good thing.”

“Did we make the Freys kill them?” Tommen asks suddenly.

His uncle says nothing, then allows, “No Lannisters were present at the wedding. But sometimes, Tommen, it is necessary to-,”

Tommen’s eyes begin to sting and water. “But- but I don’t want them to be dead! I told Sansa- I told her we could go visit them, when the war was over, and she would see them again-,”

Kevan crouches down to face him, and his face is very serious and very old, all at once. “I will tell you this now, Tommen. You must never make a promise you cannot keep. Your grandfather would tell you the same. You are a Baratheon and a Lannister. We always pay our debts. But you must never promise someone something you cannot see done yourself.”

“We didn’t see it done,” Tommen says. “You said we weren’t even there.” He jerks away from Kevan. “I want to see Sansa now.”

“No,” says Kevan.

“I want to see her!” Tommen shouts, stomping his foot. “She’s my wife!”

“She is your wife, and you needs learn when to leave a wife be,” his uncle tells him severely. “She is grieving. You must let her grieve alone.”

Sansa does grieve alone, for the next twenty days of riding from Deep Den to the Rock. Now that they are safely in the mountains they move a bit slower, and Kevan does not push them to keep as hard a pace. Sansa stops riding for the first week and spends near all her time lying down in the wheelhouse. She usually says she is tired and has a headache, or her stomach hurts. Tommen doesn’t think she is lying because often his stomach hurts when he feels bad too.

After that week she does get back in the saddle, but she doesn’t say much to him beyond the occasional ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in response to his chatter. Tommen wants her to see that he is upset too, that he never wanted any more of her kin to die, but he’s not sure how to show her without crying in front of her, and husbands should never cry in front of their wives, because they have to be strong for them, Uncle Kevan says. Tommen supposes that makes sense because Mother always said Aunt Dorna was a ‘weepy woman’. Mother never cries.

She does seem to brighten slightly, or at least look around in interest, when Lannisport first comes into sight, gleaming gold along the coast. They stop over to eat in the city before continuing up to the Rock, and it is abuzz with tales of Joffrey and Margaery’s grand wedding and Uncle Jaime’s return to King’s Landing. Only, when they speak of Uncle Jaime, the smiles seem to fade and the voices lower, and it’s not until they’re approaching the Rock that Kevan tells him there are rumors that Jaime was gravely injured by outlaws. 

He won’t say anymore than that, although Uncle Jaime can’t be dead, he can’t, because he is the strongest man in the Seven Kingdoms. Tommen always liked him better than Father because he would smile at him and tease him in a nice way, not a mean way, and once swung him around by his arms before Mother intervened. Tommen used to ask him if he could ride on his shoulders around the Red Keep, but Uncle Jaime said it wasn’t proper for a prince to use a Kingsguard as a draft horse. Still, Tommen thinks he always liked him better than Joff, although not as much as Myrcella, who could always make both him and Uncle Tyrion roar with laughter.

The Rock is just as big as Tommen remembers, and the whole household assembles to greet them. Aunt Dorna squeals over how big he’s gotten and kisses him on the head, petting his hair, then takes Sansa’s hand in her own and tells her how beautiful she is and how well the Lannister scarlet of her riding habit complements her complexion. Sansa’s smile is a little stiff, but she inclines her head graciously all the same. She has news that cousin Martyn was released to the Lannister men at Golden Tooth, and will be arriving soon. Kevan smiles broadly at this, and kisses her on the cheek sweetly, then takes little Janei in his arms, tossing her up in the air and catching her as she shrieks with laughter.

Aunt Darlessa seems much less happy, but that’s to be expected; cousin Tyrek was her only child and now he’s dead, just like her husband. Her greeting to both Tommen and Sansa is polite, but colder than Aunt Dorna’s. Ser Damon Lannister and his son Ser Damion Lannister, the castellan, and his grandson Ser Lucion Lannister, who Tommen is to serve as a squire for eventually, are all there. As is Lady Myranda, Ser Stafford’s widow, and Tommen can tell already she doesn’t like Sansa because her husband died at the Battle of Oxcross, where Robb Stark’s men maybe turned into monsters and ate their hearts. But Cerenna and Myrielle, her daughters, are all smiles, gushing over how pretty and sweet Sansa seems, and how well-suited she is to ‘our little Tom’.

Eventually they are shown to their large adjoining bedchambers, and Sansa says she is tired and going to sleep, and Tommen just nods and lets her shut the door behind her. He sits cross-legged on the too big bed, teasing Lady Whiskers with a piece of yarn, and thinks. And thinks. Sansa is safe here and no one will ever hurt her again like they did at court, but she might never be happy here, ever. No matter how nice he is or even if he becomes a great knight like his father. She is the last one of her entire line and even if they have children, they will be Lannisters and Baratheons before they are ever Starks.

Tommen knows Myrcella would say he ought to think how he would feel, in her shoes, so he does. He imagines how he would feel if Mother and Joff and Cella and Grandfather and Uncle Tyrion and Uncle Kevan and Aunt Dorna and all his cousins- if they were all dead and gone and called traitors, and it was just him, all by himself, at Winterfell. He shivers a little at the thought. He would feel so cold, and alone, and… and angry. He would feel angry, too, because it wouldn’t be fair. Why would the gods do something like that to him? He’s not a bad person, at least, he doesn’t think he is. Neither is Sansa.

He wakes up very early the next morning, instead of huddling under the covers until a maid comes in to force him up, and dresses himself, something he’s gotten better at after weeks on the road. He even fixes his hair, and then slips out of the room, hurrying past confused guards and puzzled servants, until he finds Joy Hill in the kitchens. Joy is his uncle Gerion’s bastard daughter, but she’s not much older than him, only eleven, and he will be nine soon. Joy isn’t a servant and she knows how to read and write, but he knows she doesn’t spend much time with anyone but little Janei, because Cerenna and Myrielle look down on her for being a bastard born of a common woman. 

She smile brightly to see him, and even embraces him, ruffling his newly fixed hair. He likes all her freckles; they look like stars scattered across her suntanned face. Her hair isn’t true Lannister gold, more coppery than anything else, and her eyes are brown, but that’s alright. Maybe that will make Sansa like her more. Tommen tells her his plan, and she seems confused, but ultimately agrees, and a little while later helps him bring a tray up with a maid to Sansa’s room.

Sansa is sitting up in bed when they come in, and her eyes widen, although more in alarm than fear. Before she can say anything, Tommen says, “This is Mistress Joy Hill, my cousin. We brought you some breakfast so you wouldn’t have to come eat with everyone else today. And I know you don’t want to see me, but maybe Joy can show you all the places I told you about here. Like the godswood. She knows all the best hiding places in the Rock, Joy does.”

Joy curtsies awkwardly. “Good morning, my lady.”

Sansa is staring between the two of them, and then something seems to change in her sad, pale face, and she pushes back the covers and stands up. “I want you to come too, Tommen,” she says, “if that’s alright. It will be like a tour after our wedding, only… Only here instead.” She smiles, and even though it may be forced, Tommen mostly thinks it is brave. She is braiding her hair back, quickly. “We can take some food with us, can’t we? Let’s go outside.”

Sunshine is flooding in through the windows, and it turns her hair to bronze. Tommen thinks she has never looked more pretty. Sansa comes over to them, and bows her head to Joy. “It’s very good to meet you, Lady Joy.”

No one’s ever called Joy ‘lady’ before. Joy all but beams. “I like the library best,” she says. “There’s windows in the ceiling- you’ll see it, and it makes stripes of light all across the floor. Oh, and the ballroom- the chandelier is all gemstones, and they sparkle, and- and the godswood is nice, too, even if it’s a cave! It’s peaceful.”

Sansa smiles back at her, and then looks briefly at Tommen, and for the first time he feels that she is not looking down at him, humoring him, but giving him an almost… contented sort of look. Not as though they are suddenly the best of friends, but that she isn’t upset to be around him, and she’s not worried about what he might say or do. Without saying a word, she holds out her hand. He takes it, and is surprised when she gives his a quick squeeze. 

“I’ll get changed now,” she says, “and then we’ll see, alright?”

“Alright,” he says, feeling a patter of hope in his chest, and wonders if they might show her the kennels and the new litter of puppies born there, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Some Notes:
> 
> 1\. Some credit for this very, very long one-shot ought to go to ArkonWarlock, who suggested it way back when.
> 
> 2\. This isn't a super serious one-shot, clearly, and I don't intend it as a deadly serious look at the ramifications of a Tommen/Sansa marriage. It's more so a chance to do a character study of Tommen and what his internal life might be like, given his childhood and the people he's surrounded by. I guess one of the big consequences of this is that the Tyrells cannot have Joffrey poisoned at his own wedding, because Tommen is unavailable for Margaery to wed, so they need to wait until she and Joffrey have a son. Not a great turn of events for poor Marg, although I suppose Tyrion's lucked out here.
> 
> 3\. It felt strange writing this because we get so little of what Sansa is thinking and feeling but I did enjoy trying to portray things through the eyes of a mostly well-intentioned kid like Tommen, who is more perceptive than the people around him realize. It's 100% canonical that Tommen enjoys reading, to the point where even Jaime has seemingly noticed it in ASOS, and whenever I see Tommen in fics it's mostly portraying him as sort of this dopey little kid without a clue, which I think is unfair to the poor little bookworm.
> 
> 4\. I guess we can argue over how much Tommen was ever aware of his father's abuse of his mother, but in this fic it plays a large role in how he views Joffrey. It's blatantly obvious to Tommen that Joff *must* be Robert's son, just like him- they're so alike, in Tommen's eyes. He also has a good deal of insecurity and self-loathing here, which is sort of ramped up by his marriage to Sansa and the fact that he realizes people are mocking them. He may be much more attached to Cersei than he ever was to Robert, but that doesn't mean her parenting made him feel all that confident in himself and his worth.
> 
> 5\. "When does this fic take place, exactly?" At the very end of 299 AC to the very beginning of 300 AC. En route to Casterly Rock, news arrives of the Red Wedding. By the time they reach the Rock, Joffrey's wedding has gone off without a hitch, and Jaime has returned to King's Landing sans a hand. Sansa has just turned 13, and Tommen is approaching his 9th birthday, which just makes the whole thing even more heartwrenching. They're both just little kids forced into some very adult roles.
> 
> 6\. I know technically not a lot 'happens' in this fic, but I do think we see some growth from Tommen as he begins to mature from a naive and spoiled little boy into someone who will someday (we can hope) be a better man than his brother, father, grandfather, and uncles combined. Additionally I think we see Sansa start to open up and trust a bit as she realizes Tommen has zero ulterior motives in wanting to spend time with her. 
> 
> 7\. I'm always open to prompts, especially ones that might be more 'one-shot' suited than '50+ chapter fic' suited. You can find me on tumblr at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com).


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